I haven’t dressed up since New Year’s Eve 2020, so it felt great to squeeze into a vintage Arnold Scaasi dress and go to tonight’s celebrity-packed Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Okay, I wasn’t actually inside the Met Gala, but protesting in front of the Met with the tireless activists of…
pictures of me
Jewel of the Month: Stars on Your Ears
When I like a style, I like it … Joan Jett released “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” in 1981, and I’m wearing a version of her haircut FORTY YEARS LATER. Designer Stephen Sprouse put DayGlo colors on the runway in 1984, and I’m still obsessed. And I’ve wanted Freddie Mercury’s cool star sunglasses since Queen’s…
Throwback Thursday: Anna Nicole Smith and “Fame”
Back in the day, random folks like me were able to publish on the Huffington Post. We didn’t get any money for this, just exposure. Seeing as it’s hard to pay the phone bill with “exposure” it’s probably best that the arrangement came to an end. But every so often, I remember I have a…
Jewel of the Month: Queen Min Earrings
I’m extra excited to share June’s Jewel of the Month here, albeit at the last possible minute, because this is the first significant new gold design that I’ve created since 2019. Last year was a washout for jewelry design, but the pandemic wasn’t to blame. My manufacturers actually masked up and went back to work…
Throwback Thursday: Britney Spears and This Blog
I started writing this blog close to 14 years ago because of Britney Spears. Seriously. I had set up a free account on Blogspot on July 23, 2007, but that was just a placeholder. I published one post that said I would start blogging “soon” but not quite yet. Two days later, I learned that…
Throwback Thursday: 2005 Hair, Dog, and Dress
While searching for some old jewelry photos, I came across this May 25, 2005, photo of me and the late, great Gigi the dog. My first reaction was, “OMG! She looks so young and beautiful!” I mean, I look okay, but Gigi was ravishing. Clearly, she had just been groomed, because she hadn’t gotten one…
Same Time, Last Year: Braving the Outdoors
One year ago today, I ventured out of my neighborhood for the first time in six weeks. New York City had locked down for COVID-19, but I decided activism couldn’t wait any longer; I didn’t want the former guy to become a lifetime dictator with the help of a pandemic. I met up with activist…
My Best Dressed at the 2021 Oscars Is …
I’ve written before my lifelong love for DayGlo colors. Photos prove that I favor neon-pink for special occasions, like the first day of my last year of high school. Seriously! Check out my 1984 first-day-of-school top by Guess, peeking out from under my popped-collar denim jacket. Twenty-nine years later, I wore a fancy version of…
Throwback Thursday: Tiger Morse, Vikki Dougan
I’m always fascinated by the life stories of a wide variety of women. 12th-century empress? 20th-century fashionista? They’re equally compelling to me. Today was my lucky day in the 20th-century fashionista category. I’ve been interested in 1960s fashion designer/amphetamine-queen Tiger Morse since reading the Edie Sedgwick biography Edie by Jean Stein in 1986. In December…
Throwback Thursday: Cold-Shoulder Top Has Its Moment
Ten years ago, I wore an outfit that made me look like Blanche Devereaux if she were trying to dress like a New Yorker. On casual day. That cold-shoulder turtleneck was already “old” to me at the time. I had gotten it on eBay years earlier, thinking it was going to look more punk, only…